By now, I assumed every group, subset or niche that was dating or in search of love had an application or two or three to call its own.
I was wrong. Turns out there’s one distinct class that hasn’t yet gotten into the app craze and is just beginning to now: lesbians.
Dattch, now in the App Store, is apparently an attempt to get these women up to speed. The name, admittedly, didn’t make a lick of sense to me—or I assumed it was a German or eastern European-derived word. It’s actually just a blend of “date” and “catch” turned into its own hybrid.
The app, as reported by Design & Trend, was launched in London in the fall and now has just made it to Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and various parts of Florida in the States so far.
One unique aspect that stands out to me is the selectivity of the app. By this I mean that anyone can technically download Dattch but Dattch only opens itself up to being downloaded in a locale after 2,000 prospective members have been identified.
This strikes me as doing what crowdfunding is doing at its best. Yes, a site like Kickstarter is a fundraising tool but, more and more, smart entrepreneurs are using it as a testing ground. If they can shore up support, fans and small amounts of money by them to demonstrate their interest in the product, then it proves what they’re doing is solving some kind of a problem.
In the same way, Dattch is testing the waters. Especially with a dating app—or even with a speed dating event—if you don’t have participants, you’ve got nada. One advantage of a lesbian audience is that all ladies on the platform are potential mates to each other. You don’t have the phenomenon that you have for straight speed dating: tons of women sign up but not so much their male counterparts.
Robyn Exton, chief executive of the company, in the blog post, says the app is free yet there are plans in the works for premium services. This is beginning to be the case for a lot of dating sites and applications as time goes on.
Those who want to view it as just another Grindr for lesbians, could be a bit off. I haven’t downloaded Dattch (mainly because I’m not looking for a lady to romance). However, in design, the app has the look of Pinterest with image boards allowing users to not just post saucy pictures of their mugs and bodies but to also display their interests.
Lastly, I love that this was an app created with females in mind and by females.
Exton said that during beta testing there was a realization that women, unlike men, didn’t want to just be alerted to the nearest person using the app.
She continued, “It’s just the differences in how men and women behave; for guys it’s great because they’re happy to take that risk a lot quicker and say, ‘Fine, let’s meet up.’ Women just don’t ever do it that way.”
Now someone needs to pass that message on to the creators of apps for heterosexuals that hopes to please women.
-Dena